


Envy: I Drive Your Truck

by SmolBeanDrabbles



Category: The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Mentions of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmolBeanDrabbles/pseuds/SmolBeanDrabbles
Summary: When he’d lost Luke Glanton… Robin also lost you… When Luke’s birthday rolls around, he’s determined to do something about it.
Relationships: Robin Van Der Hook/Reader
Kudos: 1





	Envy: I Drive Your Truck

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my 7 Deadly Sins / 7 Heavenly Virtues Request Challenge from Tumblr
> 
> Lyrics: I Drive Your Truck - Lee Brice

_This thing burns gas like crazy, but that’s alright  
People got their ways of coping  
Oh, and I’ve got mine_

_I drive your truck  
I roll every window down and I burn up  
Every back road in this town  
I find a field, I tear it up  
Till all the pain’s a cloud of dust  
Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck_

_I’ve cussed, I’ve prayed, I’ve said goodbye  
Shook my fist and asked God why  
These days when I’m missing you this much  
I drive your truck_

_\---_

_noun_

  1. A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck.



Robin twisted the keys between his fingers again as he stared at the Toyota truck. _This was all around a bad idea…_ He bit his lip and turned back to his office, No! He couldn’t do that either. This was about the one time of the year he would know exactly where you were and wouldn’t awkwardly bump into you around town, or any time you came down here to have your car serviced. Which wasn’t often these days. Like you were avoiding him. Like you didn’t want to see him. Which he was sure you didn’t…  
  
He took a deep breath. Today was Luke Glanton’s birthday. He only knew that because you had told him, he’d never asked Luke himself. And Luke was no longer around, but every time his birthday rolled another year you would visit his grave. Robin desperately wanted to see you… And he’d counted down the days to Luke’s birthday for weeks. But now it was here he was also incredibly nervous.  
For him there was nowhere closer to Luke Glanton than this truck and _you…  
  
_

*** _  
  
_The drive was long, because he drove it so slow. Reminiscing on all the conversations he’d ever had in it with Luke… with you… with _both of you_. You sometimes sitting in the bed of the truck and screaming at them both when they went a little too fast, or swerved a little too hard.  
_“HELLO!! NO SEAT BELTS!!!”_  
And them both howling with laughter and apologising, even though they’d clearly done it on purpose.

When he finally had to indicate to roll into the cemetery Robin felt a pang in his heart that almost made him turn the truck back around.  
He wasn’t sure what really compelled him to keep it running down the little track into a secluded and quiet parking lot. But his heart stopped at the sight of the iridescent blue motorcycle parked under the shade of a tree. It almost perfectly matched the blue of his quadbike. _Almost_ but not quite. Just like your relationship.  
_Almost_ but not quite. Because he’d introduced you to Luke Glanton. Even though Luke was still in love with the mother of his son, it couldn’t have been more obviously to Robin that you had feelings for him. That look in your eyes when you talked to him, the way you would laugh at nearly everything he said, and smile. Hanging onto his words.  
You never talked to Robin like that, or laughed at Robin like that, or gave him your smile… in fact sometimes Robin thought he was lucky if he could get you to talk to him at all. 

And after Luke died, you stopped hanging out with him. So if that didn’t make it extremely obvious, Robin wasn’t sure what did. He tilted his head and took a breath, this was stupid. Really stupid. He should just leave. Why was he trying to get caught up in this again?  
He knew how _you_ made him feel. He’d tried to bury it. A billion times. And it never worked. Not alone… but he couldn’t bury it with someone else either… that just wasn’t in Robin’s nature. Now he knew the second he saw your face he was going the dredge it all back up again.  
Sickeningly he realised as he pulled his truck up next to your bike, he didn’t care in the slightest. He swung out of his car and lit up. Maybe that would help calm him down, maybe he would feel even sicker…

Robin trudged down the pathway feeling uneasy. When he figured that the cigarette didn’t make him feel worse, he continued to take drags in the hope it would help calm his nerves.  
But then there you were… and nothing could help him now. And he could yell at himself inside his head all he wanted, but, he knew that wouldn’t work either.  
You were sitting where he thought you would be; talking out loud, to Luke, to yourself… it didn’t matter. He slowed his walk right down, continuing to watch you. Now he had to think of something to say to you. Of a reason to be here better than the one he had.  
You looked up and your eyes locked with his. You’d spotted someone in your peripheral vision but you never expected it to be him. Robin froze in his tracks, cigarette half way to his lips. You didn’t expect him here. In all the years you’d been doing this Robin must have stopped by once.

You had to look away from him for a minute; out across the gravestones, cheeks burning. You took a deep breath and looked back to him, gently beckoning him over with a tip of your head.  
_Here we go again…  
_You hadn’t seen him properly, like you used to, since Luke’s death. And still - you had feelings for a man who would rather be around Luke than around you. You were almost certain he didn’t like you around Luke either, and you didn’t know how you were supposed to cope in each other’s presence without the third man in the room.  
Before Luke it was _easy_. You’d never call Robin a friend, he just fixed your truck. But you would always stay for ages and just talk and talk and talk, even after he’d long fixed the problem.  
Sometimes it wasn’t even a real problem but your crush had you running to him about it anyway.  
_“It’s just a scratch in the paintwork Y/N… what do you want me to do about it?!”  
__“Robin! You said you could fix **A-N-Y-thing**!”  
__“You can fix that one yourself-!”  
__“But I don’t know how-!!”  
__“-Don’t know how?! Darlin’ they been teaching you the wrong things…”_

When Luke arrived that changed. Luke talked to you a lot, you liked Luke. Hanging out with him was easy. He was the kind of man you could see on weekends, and sometimes you did. But Robin, whatever unfathomable thing you had with him, receded into pretty much _“hi, here’s my keys”_ and _“bye”  
_But he would always watch you and Luke… You’d tried talking to him about it but that wasn’t always easy. And you weren’t about to straight up confess a bunch of things in front of Luke Glanton-!  
Luke knew, because you’d told him. Maybe once. And you weren’t sure if he’d really listened or laughed it off. But if he’d ever done anything about it, it had only made things worse. The best you got now was awkward “ _you weren’t meant to see me here_ ” interactions on the street…  
Robin was almost a stranger to you now and it hurt.  
Robin, the man who after about 5 minutes of knowing a guy offered him a place to stay and a job. You should have known then or were stupid for thinking this could work out….

  
He sat tentatively on the other side of Luke’s grave to you. _Between us, as ever…_ Neither of you looked at each other as he stubbed out his cigarette on the low concrete wall.  
“It’s been a while, Robin.”  
“Yeah… But… I figured you’d be here…”  
You smiled at the clouds “…Because I’m here every year?”  
“Mmm hmmm…”  
You kept ‘Oh, so you do have some interest in me?’ firmly down where it belonged. Deep inside of you, and a shameful thing to think. So instead you laughed; “I guess we are due a catch up…” you stuffed your hands into the pockets of your jacket – very aware he was doing the same thing “…And the three of us are together once again…”  
His chuckle didn’t last too long, and you both lapsed into silence.  
It was on the tip of his tongue he knew. It had been for a while; Robin had never said it. All those encounters on the street were never the right time. But in this moment; he had to forgive you, forgive Luke, forgive himself…  
“I’m sorry…”  
“Sorry…For what?”  
“That it never worked out…”  
“What never worked out…?”  
“You and Luke… That it never worked out…”  
Suddenly your eyes widened and you leapt up “ROBIN-!? ME AND LUKE!? WHAT—!” You found yourself stepping backwards away from him, shocked.   
_Please don’t, please DON’T tell me that’s the reason we never…?  
_He was looking at you with a nearly identical expression. And you covered your mouth and had to do a 180…  
  


For seconds that felt like hours your mind raced. Your mind was screaming at you.   
“Y/N…” He sounded _so_ dejected. And you turned back, to that same concerned expression, like you were breaking him.  
“R-Robin do…” you hesitated “…Do you think I…” your eyes flicked to Luke’s grave “was crushing on Luke…?!” you winced, not really wanting to have this discussion here. BUT if it was going to happen, inevitably, and ironically, of course Luke would be a part of it.  
You looked back into his innocent, broken, blue eyes in complete disbelief. How long had you wasted, had you _both_ wasted, thinking that other was in love with Luke Glanton?!  
Because the tone of his voice made you think otherwise. He wasn’t resentful of you. But of Luke **_WITH_** you.  
Maybe… _maybe_ … Robin had feelings for Luke. He probably did. You saw the way he looked at him. The problem was he had stronger feelings for you.   
He still did. And you still had them for him too.

His gaze shifted and he looked to his knees, hands running from his pockets down his legs.  
“Y-yeah… but… now you make it sound like… that’s not true…” He bit his lip for a second.  
You made a point to visibly shake your head a little harder than necessary; “No! It’s not! Luke was nice-! Don’t get me wrong! I loved him dearly but not like… not like _that_ …” You felt the need to turn and apologise to his grave. But couldn’t help but smile; this was his fault somehow. He was here somewhere, _laughing at you both_.  
“…But you always…” He faltered, his voice in complete denial of what you felt he probably knew now “… always came down to see him. And the way you…” His eyes flicked back to your face, and you could swear that pink dusted his cheeks.  
“I talked to Luke because I was way too nervous to…” You faltered also. Hands back in your pockets, you shifted on your feet. “…I was in _awe_ of his confidence. If I had that… if I had what he had then maybe I would have… maybe we would have…” You shook your head - this was dumb, now both of you were dancing around what you were both now aware of. You liked him; his attitude was always towards the feeling that he thought you liked Luke. Meaning he **_ALSO_** liked you.  
Is that why he was here…?

“Robin. It was never Luke. It was never about Luke. It was about _you_ …”  
Then he did go red and looked back to his legs “Oh- oh… I—-”. Robin bit his lip and lowered his head even further. You waited patiently, because somewhere in him was a real response to that confession “…It… was about you _too_.” It was quiet. Like he didn’t want to admit it. Like he didn’t want to think now that if either of you had just _said_ it back then, something could have happened far sooner.  
This time when his eyes found yours again the blue was far clearer. “What now?”  
You were slightly taken aback by the question. You didn’t know. You guessed you proceeded like two people that liked each other did - figuring out if you wanted it to be more than that. You turned back to Luke, and this time he did too.  
“You know it’s all his fault.”  
“Oh, you think he’s laughing at us somewhere?”  
You couldn’t help but laugh “Oh, yeah. For sure…”

There was another few minutes of silence before Robin stood. “Hey… do you… want to go somewhere?”  
You turned to him; there was a strange kind of confidence to his walk as he crossed to you. “Like where?”  
He smiled gently “If we’re gonna celebrate Luke’s birthday… I feel we can do it in better places than this…”

*

Robin let you walk ahead of him. That question he’d asked of _“what now?”_ remained unanswered. He mentally kicked himself… if he’d felt envy towards Luke for the relationship you shared it was clearly for no good reason…  
You stopped in the lot and smiled to yourself. His truck (Their? Luke drove it around too, but it was certainly Robin’s) was parked up next to your bike. Of course it was.  
You turned “So am I following you or…?”  
He looked to your bike and then his trucks tailgate “No… no, you can… hop in the front and I’ll load your bike…”  
“By yourself?!”  
“Yeah, I got this.”  
You shook your head defensively “Uh uh, not my baby…!” He laughed, watching you walk to it and fold up the kick stand “If we do this, we’re doing it together-!”  
In a rare flash of complete confidence in himself, Robin crossed his arms with a grin; “Are we still talking about the bike…?”  
  


*  
  


“So what _does_ happen now…?” He re-voiced the question; trying not to stare at your legs up on his dashboard as you relaxed into the seat next to him.  
“ _The perils of dating_?” You laughed “and if that goes well…” you shrugged “I always felt maybe enjoying the moment kinda worked best…”  
Robin nodded, that was sensible. If something happened between you, then it happened… and if not, at least you both knew. But he felt now you both did know something _would_ probably happen. He wished for that. He wanted that. He’d wanted it for a while.  
“And are you?”  
You chuckled, folding your arms “Let’s see… I’m with you, in this truck and we’re about to go celebrate our friend’s birthday,” you looked back across to him and flashed his favourite smile of yours. _Ah-!_ He could tell you that now. “what’s not to enjoy?”

*

He drove that truck maybe a little too recklessly through the forest. But he knew it, he knew this place so well he knew where he could take the truck vs where he could take a quadbike. He could drive this with his eyes closed. And all the while he was explaining to you how he first met Luke here. The first place he saw how well he rode his bike. You’d been through here maybe once… you certainly didn’t know it as well as he did…  
But something about the way he described it made you want to.  
“Do you come back… often?”  
“I take my quadbike here pretty regularly - it’d be _perfect_ for yours!”  
“We should come… and do that…”  
You looked at the trees flashing by as he notched up the speed again.  
He laughed. A genuine, cute, Robin laugh that caught you off guard. When was the last time you had heard that?  
“I’d like that! A lot!”

Robin rolled the truck into a small clearing and ticked it to a full stop. Pointing west. He indicated to the ridge.  
“And that’s where I first really met him. This place, this truck and you… that’s as close as I get to Luke Glanton…” Robin bit his lip, and you realised just how personal that reveal was. Like he might never have admitted it out loud before.  
You smiled; in complete solidarity. You rode a motorcycle, nowhere near as good as Luke did but you did, you felt him sometimes, when the wind pulled through your hair. Or you did something particularly _daring_. And every year on his birthday, no matter what, you felt the need to update him on your life.  
Luke was a friend, he deserved to know.   
“You don’t have to tell me…” you responded looking out across the clearing “I have similar thoughts…”  
By the look he gave you he’d clicked that it was your bike. _“Hmm.”_ He replied with a smile and nudged your arm gently “Come on, let’s not sit in here all day!”

Robin rummaged in the back, because he knew somewhere he had beer; it wouldn’t be ice cold. Hell, it would barely be cold. _Maybe Luke warm!_ he giggled at his own stupid joke. If you were going to celebrate a birthday… “…We need something to celebrate with!”  
He held out a bottle to you; “Oh! Man! Robin! It’s like you knew-!” You took it from him, allowing your fingers to brush his.  
You hadn’t touched him like that in years, and the feel of his skin against yours once again made you beam. And he knew it, by the look on your face _he finally knew it_. He was the one. He was always the one that made you feel this way.

Admitting your feelings to him would be too much; you could make the excuse to see Robin as much as possible by seeing a lot of Luke… who you clearly had no problem talking to…  
And Robin knew he’d likely shown outward attitude that wouldn’t make him seem all that welcoming when Luke was gone. With your excuse to visit absent, you couldn’t face Robin alone.  
Now he knew that he felt stupid, that he could ever be envious; not of Luke himself but the relationship you shared. But he realised he _could_ have that. You could have that. It was so cute to him though; that you, admitting those feelings out loud to yourself - or to Luke, perhaps? - has made you so nervous to be around Robin that you simply couldn’t face him alone.

And he knew you weren’t shy, far from it, you were about as loud and outgoing as Luke himself was. Your temperament around Robin before Luke’s arrival simply matches Robin’s because… well, he didn’t know, maybe he calmed that storm  
_Ride like lightning, crash like thunder_ \- except you’d never crashed, had you, or maybe you had. And he hadn’t realised… and now it was time for your comeback. Long past due.

*

You sat together on the hood of his truck… and you weren’t sure you’d ever heard Robin laugh so loud. Or ever laughed so hard yourself.  
You reminisced on Luke for a long time, and caught up with your own lives. You had missed this man so much. You couldn’t believe you’d been able to stay away from him for so long…  
The sun was beginning to set before you knew it. And both of you allowed pause to gaze at the sky; awash with pinks, purples, oranges, and where the night began to touch the East; midnight blue.  
“It really is gorgeous when it’s this clear.”  
_“Mmm hmm_ …” although by the time you’d finished your statement Robin was already looking to you. The way those final rays of sunshine hit your face; left a sparkle in your eyes.  
  
In the silence you could both hear the radio; left on softly – but still just loud enough to hear Metallica over the speakers. Somehow you’d rummaged around enough to find a CD Luke had left behind.  
You drew your eyes back to the horizon and took another sip of beer, you couldn’t help but wonder what the future held. Behind that sunset was another day… And now, perhaps so much more.

Robin took the opportunity of your distraction to lean across and take your free hand in his. Now or never very much became **_now._** You turned back to him; allowing your fingers to tangle with his. You smiled gently. In the cooling air and the stillness of your surroundings you let yourself feel it. The way he made your heart beat, that inescapable joy you could finally let cross your face. But this time it was different; because it crossed his too. And Robin instinctively held your hand tighter.  
The movement was gentle; and you pushed your forehead against his. The fading daylight turning that blue intense. But there was no way you were looking away from him now. There was a future here. You knew that much. Between the two of you now – tomorrow was the beginning of the _future._

Something was going to happen, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
